Tag Archives: Mies van der Rohe

The trenches of modernism

Posted on July 3, 2019 by

Walter Gropius, the founder of the Bauhaus school, died fifty years ago today. A new biography is out, Gropius: The Man Who Built the Bauhaus, by Fiona MacCarthy. Two major houses published it simultaneously, Faber & Faber in the U.K. … Continue reading →

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Rybczynski reviews Dystopia

Posted on February 14, 2019 by

“Witold Rybczynski on architectural PTSD and what James Stevens Curl gets wrong (and right) in his controversial new book” is the sub-headline of Rybczynski’s review of Making Dystopia, the magisterial history of modern architecture by Britain’s most accomplished architectural historian. … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Book/Film Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

The mods’ survival explained

Posted on January 29, 2019 by

They cut the feedback loop. Nobody has done a better job of explaining the persistence of modern architecture than does Roger Scruton in his review of James Stevens Curl’s new book, Making Dystopia. In his review, Scruton sums up with … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Books and Culture | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Architecture’s Three Stooges

Posted on September 30, 2018 by

Theodore Dalrymple, a British physician, psychiatrist and theorist of society, culture and design, has written a review of James Stevens Curl’s new book Making Dystopia for the New English Review. Dalrymple calls the book “essential, uncompromising, learned,” and especially devastating … Continue reading →

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Modern architecture is crazy

Posted on January 28, 2018 by

Among the most recent revelations of science in the service of architecture is that three of the most eminent founders of modern architecture suffered from mental illness. Le Corbusier was on the autism spectrum while Walter Gropius and Ludwig Mies … Continue reading →

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Millais vs. Le Corbusier

Posted on November 5, 2017 by

Malcolm Millais, the author of Exploding the Myths of Modern Architecture, has written Le Corbusier, the Dishonest Architect, brought out in Britain by Cambridge Scholars Publishing, of Newcastle upon Tyne. It is a brave book and a necessary book, a … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Architecture History | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 10 Comments

Old mods hard-wired to ugly

Posted on August 23, 2017 by

The two buildings above say all that needs to be said, really, about why traditional architecture is superior to modern architecture. Still, it is crucial to understand why modern architecture emerged in the first half of the last century, and … Continue reading →

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Dirty truths of modernism

Posted on July 2, 2017 by

Sometimes truth comes out of the mouths of babes. Other times it comes out of the mouths of potty. That does not make it any less true, and since truth on any topic is a rare commodity, Paul Joseph Watson’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Video | Tagged , , , , , , , | 11 Comments

Will the real Seagram Building please stand up?

Posted on September 27, 2016 by

On Sunday I posted “Tom Wolfe and Henry Reed,” and to my mortification was informed by a reader that the Seagram Building was not the building in the photo I used to illustrate the piece. I plead guilty. Who could … Continue reading →

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Tom Wolfe and Henry Reed

Posted on September 25, 2016 by

I have been finishing up my book Lost Providence, girding my loins on the adrenaline rush of Tom Wolfe’s 1981 bestseller From Bauhaus to Our House. How to select a great passage to quote? Well, one way is to quote … Continue reading →

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